Building community one meal at a time: introducing Casserole

Sarah Finch and project manager Murtz on the Casserole stall in Redhill market

Today I was in Redhill helping the guys at Casserole to make a video promoting their project.

This is a great little project that is connecting people and tackling social isolation all through the medium of food.

The idea is beautifully simple. People can sign up as Cooks or Diners: cooks simply commit to cooking two meals in two weeks – nothing fancy is required, just an extra portion of a meal they are cooking anyway. Diners are people who, for whatever reason, will benefit from having a tasty meal being delivered to them from time to time.

As project manager Murtz explains, “When it comes to cooking dinner, it doesn’t take much extra time to add one more portion to the mix, but the value of that extra portion to someone who lives on your street and struggles to get out and about amounts to much more than just a meal.”

Redhill was chosen as a pilot area for the project and Murtz signed up the first cooks and diners at a stall in Redhill market last month (you can see a video here). Delicious meals are now being cooked and eaten, and new people are signing up. The project is proving to have many spin-off benefits, with recipes being swapped and people getting to know near neighbours they had never met before.

This is early days and the Casserole team is keen to grow the scheme. They are talking to local voluntary organisations about how to adapt the scheme to suit new groups, and they are keen to extend their links in our community.

Please visit their website and spread the word to anyone you know who might like to get involved.